The application of drywall or wallboard panels to wall studs or ceiling joists is a common practice in the construction field. After such panels are nailed or otherwise secured to the building frame, it is desirable to seam them together along adjoining edges, both along flat wall surfaces and corners, in order to lend a smooth and continuous appearance to the finished wall.
Various types of tapes and taping methods have been employed in the past. In a commonly-used taping device, an adhesive compound is applied to paper tape as it is dispensed through pressure rollers onto the panels to be joined. Representative of this approach are U.S. Pat. No. 4,080,240 to Dysart and U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,028 to Mills et al. Both disclose a manually-operated device connected to a pressurized "mud" or adhesive supply line. As tape is drawn through the rollers from a continuous roll, it is automatically coated with adhesive and may then be applied to the wall joints and pressed into place with rollers. Dysart discloses an extendable bevelled roller for smoothing tape into corners; the corner roller of Mills et al is not retractable, but rather may be rigidly fixed or spring-biased in front of the main rollers.
Despite improvements in operation and manipulability, known taping tools remain unwieldy and cumbersome, particularly due to the necessity of having an attached mud supply line. This problem has been partially alleviated by recent improvements to the tape itself, wherein adhesive is pre-applied to a tape made of mesh or other open material. A line to the mud source is no longer required, and the apparatus for applying the mud to the tape is eliminated from the body of the tool, thus reducing tool weight and enhancing portability. Nonetheless, the taping devices of the prior art are not well suited for use with the newer tapes: they are unnecessarily heavy, have many moving parts, and require two-handed operation both in applying tape to the wall and in cutting the tape from the roll. The tape dispensing tool of the present invention proposes to fulfill the need for a lightweight, easily operated tape dispenser specifically suited for use with adhesive mesh drywall tapes.